“Learn how to write your first eBook and start selling it online in just 3 days using free tools—perfect for beginners looking to build passive income fast.”

Table of contents:

Introduction to eBook Passive Income.

I’m going to show you how to create and sell Using only free technologies, publish your first ebook online in three days or less. One of my recent eBooks made over $4,000 in just 11 days, and I only had to create it once. It keeps selling on its own after that. One of the greatest ways to get passive income online is through eBooks because people are always searching for quick, valuable solutions to their problems, and if your ebook can help them do that, they’re willing to pay. So let’s get into it.

My First eBook Success Story:

I created my first ebook a few years ago called Digital Workbook for Etsy Sellers, and I charged $18 for it. I designed the first version of it within a few hours using a free tool. I published it for free, and not only did I sell multiple copies of it, but I was able to scale it to a higher-ticket digital product down the road, which was a digital course. I was able to dive deeper into the topics I  covered in my ebook and charge more for it, and that’s exactly what you can do as well.

How to Land on Your Unique, Profitable Idea.

So here’s how to land on your unique, profitable idea that no one else can replicate.

Identify Your Sweet Spot

You need to identify your sweet spot, which ultimately lies in the center of these two key points, your skills and the market, to identify your sweet spot.

Ask Yourself These Questions:

What is it that people come to me for help with most often? What have I figured out that could save someone else time, money, or stress?
What personal stories, experiences, struggles, or accomplishments can I share to illustrate what I want to teach? It could be any problem you’ve resolved for yourself or another person.

For example, budgeting, tips, content creation, skincare routines, learning a new language, or how to prepare meals for the coming week.

Explore Search Engines for Validation

Then head over to search engines like Pinterest, Amazon, or even just Google and type in your topic idea. If you see many related products or posts getting traction, that’s a good thing. It indicates that your idea is already attracting interest from others importantly willing to pay for it. A bonus is finding existing books on similar topics that are already generating consistent sales and reviews.

How to create an eBook?

Keep It Simple and Profitable

So how do you create your ebook in just a few short hours? 

First, you need to keep it simple. Profitable does not mean complicated. In fact, the simpler and more streamlined your ebook is, the more likely it is to sell.

Use Free Templates and AI Tools

Use free pre-made templates so you’re not just starting from scratch and leverage AI as your personal writing assistant throughout the entire process so you’re not staring at a blank page and constantly experiencing writer’s block.

Step-by-Step Writing Process Using ChatGPT.

Set Up Google Docs and ChatGPT Side by Side

Start by creating a blank Google Doc in which you’re going to brainstorm, outline, and write out your entire ebook from start to finish.
Next, launch ChatGPT in a separate tab and arrange it beside your notes as seen below.

Be Specific With Prompts to Get Better Results

The secret is to provide ChatGPT with as much background information as you can so that it can assist you in creating an ebook that accurately represents your area of expertise and is useful, distinctive, and actionable. Be clear about your goals, the audience you hope to reach, and the transformation or outcome you hope they will experience as a result of your work.

Use ChatGPT as Your Personal Writing Assistant

I have therefore included my background, my ebook idea, and my target audience in this sample. I then asked it to help me organize this book into four or six distinct sections and to provide ten possible titles. To ensure that the outcomes are unique to me and in line with my goals, I also added some of my own thoughts and observations. I was quite particular, so I was quite pleased with the concepts and framework that ChatGPT provided.
At this point, I would just copy and paste everything into my Google Doc and start building on it. For each section, I typically generate additional ideas in my head and then feed those bullet points back into ChatGPT and ask it to help me turn them into a few concise, helpful paragraphs. 

For instance, I’m making a ton of notes for my ebook’s first section, just concepts from my  experience stories and lessons I want to share. Then pasting it into ChatGPT to help me turn it into clear, structured sentences. It actually turns into a back-and-forth procedure, similar to having your own writing assistant that helps you shape a high-value ebook way faster than doing it alone. I would then repeat this process for the rest of the ebook.

How to Format and Design an eBook?

Save as PDF or Use Canva for Better Design

Once you have your sections mapped out, you can keep things super simple by saving your ebook as a PDF and selling it as is, especially if you’re happy with how it’s formatted. But if you want to give it a more polished but professional look, you can easily use pre-made templates from Canva or Kittl to make it visually appealing without overthinking the design.

Customize Canva Templates

For this video, I’ll be using Canva, and all you need is a free account to follow along. Therefore, if you don’t already have an account, you may create one right now with your email address, then browse through their various templates by typing ebook into the search bar on their webpage. 

If you’re using the free plan, make sure to pick a design that does not have the little crown icon that looks like this because those can only be accessed under the pro plan. Once you find a template you like, just click on it and select Customize this template to start editing.The text colors and visuals can then be changed to fit your ebook’s design and content. Just like before, you can have Canva open on one side of your screen and your Google Doc on the other and start copying and pasting everything into your Canva design from your document.

Create a Product Mockup Using Canva

Even if you’ve never used Canva before, it’s really user-friendly and intuitive. And if you want a bit more guidance, I actually have a full Canva playlist on my channel that you can check out, but honestly, feel free to play around with it, and you’ll quickly see how intuitive it is. Once you’re happy with how all your pages look, just click the share button on the top right corner and download your ebook as a PDF file.

I also recommend downloading your cover page separately as a JPEG file because you’ll need this image to create your product mockup for your sales page or listing. 

So just select jpeg as the file type and choose only the first page. You can go back to Canva’s homepage and search ebook mockup in the search bar to find a free mockup image to use. I’ll choose this one here since it’s free, and I only need to display the first page for this example. In order to bring in the cover page jpeg file from your computer that you just downloaded, you can go to uploads on the left side here or simply drag it into the artboard from your computer and replace the default picture with your cover page in the mockup.Modify the typefaces, text, and other components to reflect your brand and style. And when you’re ready, you can download this as a JPEG file to upload to your sales page.

Publishing Your eBook for Free with Payhip.

Sign Up and Upload Your eBook File.

Now, since we’re only utilizing free resources for this guide, you may rapidly publish your ebook completely for free. You can sell digital downloads and other kinds of digital goods by using Payhip. 

They offer a variety of plan alternatives, and it’s very beginner-friendly. For this instance, I’ll go with the free option, as it’s all you need to get going. I’ve discussed Payhip in a number of my earlier films, so I’m thrilled to be working with them on this one. 

To get started for free, just click right over here and then sign up with your email. Once you’ve logged in, you’ll be brought to your dashboard, and I’m just going to go ahead to products, and then I’m going to click on Add Product, and then Upon selecting “digital product,” the product file will be uploaded here.

Add Title, Pricing, and Mockup Images

So this is the ebook, the PDF file that your customers are going to receive after they purchase. Alright, so there’s my PDF right there, and then under the title,

I’m going to call it the Ultimate YouTube launch plan. Under price, I’m going to make it $15 US and then You can include up to nine pictures of your digital goods in Undercover. So I’m going to upload the mockup that we already created in Canva. So there it is right there. It looks good, and it does say that the recommended minimum image width is 1000 pixels. So just be mindful of that.

Here is an example of a product page; you must make it like this. i’ll blur the image/mockup on the product page and also the title because of some issues, but you have to make it clear.

Write Product Descriptions with ChatGPT Help

And I do recommend adding in a few more images to showcase what your digital product is all about. Maybe add in a teaser of the interior pages or a description so your customers know what they’re getting in the description. You can actually get ChatGPT to help you write out the benefits and features of your digital product, which is exactly what I did. So I’m going to copy and paste in my description that I’ve already put together in a Google Doc.

Finalize Product Visibility and Category

Okay, everything appears to be in order. Here, I’ll just go in and restructure a couple portions. Okay, that’s good. 

So under visibility, I’m going to keep it at visible because I want everyone to be able to see my product Under Advanced Options. I’m going to select the product as an ebook; everything else looks good. You can go through this and just select anything that’s relevant to your product, but I’m going to go ahead and add my product.

Previewing and Publishing Your Product Page.

Set Up Payment Options via PayPal or Stripe

Then, to preview our product page, let’s just go to show me my product page, and everything looks good. I love the image, the title, and the description, and if you added in more images, you’d be able to cycle through all of them right here. Now, to make sure you can receive payments, go into account and click on settings, then select payment details, and then this is where you can link your PayPal account or your Stripe account. I typically like to provide both options, so I would link both of them here.

Offer Physical Copy with Book Vault Integration

The best part is that Payhip offers a print-on-demand option with Book Vault, so you can easily sell your ebook in hard copy. So I’m going to leave a link to this article, which provides the step-by-step instructions on how you can provide that option to your customer, whether they want the digital copy or the physical copy of your book.

Boosting Visibility with Payhip Marketplace.

How to Add Your eBook to the Marketplace

Payhip also has an online marketplace where you can publish your eBooks at no extra charge.

In essence, you are reaching out to their current audience—anyone who is currently visiting Payhip and searching for a particular ebook—by doing this, which will increase your visibility and exposure. You could perhaps increase your sales if you’re discussing that subject. If you don’t have an existing audience, it’s super simple to add your ebook to the marketplace. 

So under products, just click on marketplace, and then you’ll see the step-by-step instructions on how to do it.

Just select Learn more, and it’ll walk you through how to edit your product page and then the minimum requirements to be eligible.

Built-in Security Features for Protection

It also has built-in security features like Download Limits and PDF stamping to protect your work from piracy. So I know that’s a common concern of many digital product sellers.

Promoting Your eBook Without a Big Audience.

Build a Warm Audience With Freebies

You can share the landing page as soon as you’re satisfied with your product. This is the link to your product page after you click on “share embed.” You can copy and paste it to wherever you’re planning to promote it. Now it’s time to promote your ebook, and here’s the truth: you don’t need a massive audience to start making sales. What you do need is a warm audience, people who trust you, value your perspective, and are already interested in the kind of transformation that your ebook offers.

Repurpose Content From Your eBook

The best way to start building that warm audience is by offering something valuable for free that directly ties into your ebook, and to make this step easier and quicker to execute, you could take a section out of your ebook since you’ve already created it, whether it’s a one-page checklist, a sample chapter, or even a short video lesson.

Use Free Email Service Providers to Build a List

If you’re including tutorials as part of your ebook. This is due to the fact that selling to someone who has already benefited from your services is far simpler than attempting to persuade a chilly social media audience. You can then submit it to a free email service provider, many of which are free up to a specific number of subscribers.

Follow Up With Automated Emails

Once someone signs up to download your freebie, they’ll be added to your email list, and that’s where you can continue to build that relationship. From there, send a follow-up email or a short automated sequence that shares your story, the problem your ebook solves, and how it can help them take the next step. 

At that point, you’re not selling to strangers. You’re offering a solution to people who’ve already raised their hand and said, yes, I’m interested.

Final Steps and Getting Started

Make sure to sign up for Payhip entirely for free using a link in the description box below so you can upload your ebook and start making sales within the next three days or less. Check out this video next to learn exactly how you can make $150 a day with a $12 ebook, so I’ll see you there.

If you need any assistance, Just feel free to contact us.

eLearnest!